Grey
by abstraction
Summary: It is selfish to think of things like this, he knows, but he is alive, again, and his companion is not, again, and he is only trying to find an equilibrium through all of this. A sequel of sorts to Castles.
1. Part I

**Grey  
(You Always Loved Those Fading Skylines)**  
abstraction

**Disclaimer:** I do not, have not, and will never own the BBC.

* * *

Night had fallen outdoors, and the dark of smoke and sky had slipped, uninvited, into his ship as he pushed open the door.

It was hard to concentrate. Air kept leaving his lungs too quickly, and the force to keep breathing caused him to gasp, repeatedly, like drowning only with less water.

There was blood on his shirt from where it had pooled, calmly, into the hollow of her neck, later running over the bare skin of her shoulder.

_( "Well, it's not monsoon season is it?" she stated, grinning and tucking a piece of hair behind her ear._

_"No," he replied, her smile catching onto his own face, "it really isn't."_

_"Great! I've been meaning to try out this one tank," she began saying, voice drifting backwards through halls of the TARDIS as she hurried towards her room. He continued smiling and turned back to the console, confident that she would like the suns of Monkta. )_

It was dry, now, and he pressed his palm against his stomach slowly, waiting for the nausea to abate. He stared uselessly at the doorway to the medlab, wondering how many times he's wished for death to reverse itself.

----------

It had only been an hour or so. A day, maybe. Some uncategorized amount of time which had passed, smoothly and indiscriminately, onwards and onwards, though never in the direction he wanted.

He passed the doorway. Again. (It remained the same as it had all the times before.)

He rubbed his eyes, tiredly, hopelessly.

This was going to be the last time. He promised himself.

---------

"You should have waited, you know."

It's silly, he knows, and entirely unhealthy to be doing this. Carrying on conversation like she'll respond, but is maybe busy thinking of something clever to say, with fingers pulling against her lips as she waits for the perfect comeback.

"You just can't help but wander. So much time between us and you keep– you just–" he pauses here, and steadies his hands, shoving them into pockets of his suit, balled up like he's about to fight, before he can continue. "We wander together sometimes too (most of the time, actually, through time and space and), but it's not really the same. You're just too curious for your own good– you're too–"

He's still in the present tense, and can feel the pressure building up within him again. There is something powerfully empty in everything he is saying, like an uninhabited room that leaves echoes with even a whisper. (Her room is uninhabited now, he realizes.)

He stops speaking and simply looks at her body, cold and pale even against the white of the room. Lashes dark against gleaming cheeks, and lips dulled, slightly chapped.

He washed away most of the blood.

He still hasn't said goodbye.

-----------

_( "You're full of it!" she giggles, looping her arm through his. They are walking on something that should pass for concrete, and the suns are blazing mercilessly down upon them._

_"Am not," he replies good-naturedly, pulling her closer to him. It's difficult to see very far, he knows, because its very bright and idly wonders if this will damage her eyesight somehow. (Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.)_

_"So you really want me to believe you accidentally began the third Inter-Galactic War?" Her smile is large and reflecting the glare of the suns above. Her eyebrows are high and disbelieving._

_"Some people," he says lightly, "just can't take their insults."_

_Laughter bubbles from her chest and out into the open air, like bells tolling for a new day, loud and happily clanged. He thinks it might've been a good idea after all. )_

----------

He thinks about how often the universe deals him the wrong set of cards. It is selfish to think of things like this, he knows, but he is alive, again, and his companion is not, again, and he is only trying to find an equilibrium through all of this.

It is an endless struggle, and about as useful as wearing sunblock in Pyrthian winter.

In other words, not very.

Around him it is quiet, and even the hum of his ship has dimmed, maybe in mourning, but he refuses to think that there is not a way around this.

Cards, he thinks, aren't very useful either, unless you are able to bluff. He has played this game before, and he is not ready to fold yet. (He hopes there is an Ace up his sleeve, or at least a Queen of Hearts.)

---------

This part of the TARDIS has remained vacant and unused for longer than he is sure of. It is here that he can remember things clearly, and can replay events which have long gone, like a memory that cannot and will not fade.

The center of the room is occupied by a metallic sphere, glinting like prisms as the soft illuminations of the TARDIS hit the surface (reflect, refract, react). The air around it is warm, vibrating, and _something_ swiftly arches across it, like a quick series of mirages formed in heavy heat.

It grows warmer, and suddenly images flash and mix together, and he can see several of their timelines at once. They are running, and then they are laughing, and then she is alone, wondering where he has gone. His throat constricts.

Her lips are curving and stretching to form his name, and she mouths it several times (_Doctor?Doctor?Doctor!_), repeating it over and over, but no sound is made.

He is silent, and does not move for a very long time.

It projects other small episodes, and dust is caught in some of the light-beams, floating slowly as though they are trying to be as cautious as he feels.

Suddenly they are _there_, where it began, and he turns away before he can see the rest of their misadventure. She had only wanted a break from the running, to live a little in the peace of the sun.

Living is what kills you, he thinks.

Behind him a new scene appears, one that would give hope, much like that of a beacon calling to shipwrecked men of the sea. But he is the one who is wrecked, and his ship tries, and tries, to tell him, but he does not turn back.

This is all she has, and can offer no more comfort.

----------

He tries again, sure that she is playing a silly trick, and will hop up from the bed and hug him senseless, grinning and laughing about how he could fall for such a thing. He would act angry and try to scold her, but it wouldn't last for more than half a second. He would grab her hand with his, hold it as tight as he could, tell her she was worth it. They would continue onwards and upwards, like they always did, traveling through time and through space, and she would only leave him to get more groceries, and giggle at the thought of living on earth again.

The quiet is thick inside the lab, and she remains as still as ever. (Please move, please sigh, please don't do this.)

His hands cover his face, and he sinks to the floor, asking for forgiveness, if she could ever forgive him, that he is sorry, that he is so, so sorry...

Later, after much time and much crippling emotion, he stands next to her. He wants to kiss her, just one last time, one proper first time, and he is so, so sorry.

When he does, her lips are cold, and chapped, and his hand tangled in her hair feels wrong, so he finds her hand instead. He knows this is the last time, and the inside of him feels like it is dying.

_( They are sitting, somewhere, somewhen, just enjoying the weather. The grass is at its greenest, the sky at its bluest, her grin at its widest._

_"How does it work here, with three suns? Why doesn't it burn up?" She is curious, as always, and he pauses in his answer to build suspense. She only eyes him with something like amusement._

_"It's quite simple, I've told you this many times before." He has, he knows, and she knows it too, but she likes the sound of his voice, and it feels right to have him explaining this, somehow._

_"I know," she says quietly. Her head tilts up toward the sky, and her eyes drift close, feeling the warmth of said suns burning the skin of her cheeks. It feels nice, and the breeze flows around them like a cool embrace, and she wishes they came here more often._

_"Me too," he says, but he's not sure what he's answering. )_

He wishes for something within her to stir, harder than he has wished for anything in his life. (Not anything. She is very something to him, but cannot be everything.)

"Don't go," he tells her. The words hang limply in the air with nothing to echo off of. There's no reply.

He lets go of her hand and walks slowly away. She was always rubbish at listening.

------------

He can't remember setting coordinates, but he remains unsurprised. This has happened before, and it would feel something like deja vu if only the lab were empty and the control room had another breathing body. His stomach curls in anger.

He needs to stop this kind of thinking.

------------

When he steps outside it is only a London street, somewhere south of her favourite chip shop, and he feels the emptiness filling his body as he reaches for her hand and grasps nothing but the breeze.

It is unfair, he decides, and pulls the door of his ship closed.

The sky hovering over the city is grey, and dreary, like an old blanket that has been stretched across rooftops to allow the sun no reprieve. He feels sick, thinking of other grey skies, and tries not to double over.

Instead, he breathes deeply, the rush of air in his lungs feeling like life, and he can't understand why he is here. He looks around, and there is nothing odd or out-of-sorts, only the distant calls of traffic and the sound of air escaping him in breaths. His chest rises, falls, rises, falls.

He glances downwards at the road, the black of asphalt glimmering in what might have been recent rainfall.

The graffiti on a nearby sidewalk reads _'Bad Wolf'_ and it is scrawled in huge, yellow letters, blocked in and significant, like a yield sign, but all he can think of is the brightness of caution tape.

He turns abruptly, and hurriedly opens the door to his TARDIS, whooshing inside and shutting it with a click.

This isn't in very good taste, he tells his ship.

She knows differently, and hopes he does too.

-------------

It has been another indeterminable length of time, before all the pieces click into place.

She had left his ship, long ago, it seems, and was carefully returned to what was previously known to her as her home. When he thinks of it he scoffs a little, because _this_ is her home, and the Powell Estates were only a residence, held from before he met her, like reserving a space in line but with no intent to stay stationary.

But then he found her, and knew her, and felt her, and held her, and he is so, so sorry.

_("How did she– Why did–" she chokes, and this, he thinks, was not what he had planned for today._

_"You did this!" she screams. "You couldn't've left well enough alone, you had to go and flaunt her about on other worlds! Take her away from her own flesh and blood!"_

_What hurts most is that he can hear his companion trapped within the confines of this screaming voice, some horrifying, lilting similarities, like when a pair of voices join in the same tune, and neither are distinguishable from the other._

_"And what about your promise, then, hmm? You're bloody well like the rest of them, you never mean what you say, you never–"_

_He wants to stop listening, but it's the only thing left of her now, the only thing living and breathing and real that was, is, a part of her. His insides fold on themselves a little._

_He wishes they didn't sound so similar. )_

His fingers return to the wiring uncomfortably situated beneath the console, stroking and mending and stripping, and it's like a distant reach towards something long-since buried, and the recollection is like pins in his mind. But he can still feel the hum of the TARDIS through his bones, reminding him that he is here, now, and not aboard something else, somewhen, where things got complicated and she made them simple.

Something sparks behind him, slightly to the left, and he feels more than hears old engines powering up. And up, and up, and up.

He tries to shift himself underneath the panel of the console in order to stop something sharp and metal from digging into his leg any further. His foot slides, knocking against a light metal of sorts, before hearing the clink, clink, silence of an unknown object falling deeper into his ship, and he really hopes he hasn't damaged anything terribly important.

"Well, it's not monsoon season is it?"

He continues concentrating on how to cross these wires with those, and if the result will be catastrophic or only mildly disastrous. (No, it really isn't, he wants to reply.)

"Great! I've been meaning to try out this one tank–"

His fingers are beginning to ache. (He's had this conversation before.)

"All ready! You said it would be sunny, right?"

The inside of his elbow itches, and he wonders how awkward elbows in general are, but doesn't move an inch. He's nearly finished, anyway.

"Can you actually hear me under there? What are you even doing?"

He stills, completely, and the vibration of the TARDIS through him ebbs, flows, slowly growing stronger only to recede, like the swell of a distant tide measured by the gravity of moons.

This is really not in good taste at all, he decides.

"Hello?" it (she) says. His neck is burning from its prolonged position and he's convincing himself that he must've tripped a wire.

And that is when, unbidden, the beginnings of an Idea start to form in the very back of his mind.


	2. Part II

He untangles himself carefully from the inner workings of his ship before standing, rigidly, and resting his eyes upon... _her_. She's wearing the clothes that she–-

_( "So?" she says, sweetly, spinning in a small circle before resting her hands on her hips. He doesn't look up from his calculation on the display screen. _

"_What do you think of it?" she continues, and he glances up for a quick moment, eyes catching on her face. _

_He looks pleasantly confused, so she rolls her eyes and gestures to a cream-colored tank she's wearing. "Oh," he says, unable to think of another response. He is not well-versed in clothing._

_Her mouth creases into a thin line of uncertainty before a hesitant, "Good 'oh' or bad 'oh'?"_

"_Good sort," he says, because she's insecure at the strangest times, and this trip is really meant for her benefit so he wants her to feel comfortable. She gives a satisfied little smile before leaving to fetch her shoes. )_

–the clothes he last saw her in. His fingers itch to reach out to her, but he abruptly shoves them in his pockets.

He stares at the image of his former companion for longer than he really should. It's disconcerting, because it looks exactly the way _she_ had always looked; his eyes are drawn to the angle of her shoulders, the upwards curve of her lips, the hands resting comfortably on her hips. He tries to focus.

He's about to speak - he's not sure what, he's hoping the words will come out as soon as he thinks of them - but she cuts him off.

"You're wondering what I am," she says knowingly. His mind backtracks furiously, trying to think of the thousand occurrences that could cause this sort of apparition. Residual imprint, he thinks, caused by a temporal flux coupled with the memory banks. An unintentional recording of specific neuron activity within a REM cycle and mapped into the three-dimensional. Something. Anything. Because this is wrong and his lungs constrict at her knowing look.

He waits for her to continue, but she says nothing.

"Yes," he replies, and his voice is thick, hovering on the edge of anger. This isn't the best way to confront a Time Lord, by showing him his dead companions.

"It's me," she says, and he bites his tongue in something akin to rage. It stirs deep in his body, like a current whirring slowly through his veins. This, he thinks, is not very fair. His fingers dig into his palms.

"You are _not–_" he starts bitingly.

"I am. My body's dead though, and I'm really sorry about that." She smiles sadly, and her face is filled with an ancient sort of grief that her features are far too young to have felt yet.

"No," he says. He unclenches his fist and points threateningly in her direction. "Tell me what you are," he enunciates, forcing as much anger as he can into the syllables. Her face, too perfectly recreated, simply stares with eyes considerably more dead than before.

Her hands fall to her sides, and she just continues to look at him. Staring, staring, staring, and the silence between them is both blissful and infuriating. He wants to hear her voice again, and he mentally curses himself. He tries to concentrate.

"_Tell me what you are._" His voice strains against the quiet.

Her eyes brighten suddenly, as though she were waiting for a cue. She gives a half smile, like she did all that time ago, when she was glum and he would do something quickly to cheer her up.

"You've already got the answer," she teases, and his mouth snaps shut. He realizes for the first time that she isn't looking directly at him, but somewhere far off into the distance, worlds and worlds away.

"Oh," he breathes, understanding.

"Emergency Programme something-rather," she states. "You're locked in the wardrobe room, and you have no idea why."

His face slackens, remembering months (years?) ago. "Oh," he says again. His anger is slowly fading into nothingness. He's suddenly exhausted.

Her face is pained. "We're on our way to.." she hesitates. "To Monkta," she says slowly. His insides begin to numb. "I'm not going to make it." Her eyes dart away, quickly, and she sighs heavily before returning her gaze forwards. "You're kicking up a fuss, you are," and her voice breaks a little.

He tries ignoring the fresh pull at old wounds. He remembers.

"Now you're wondering how I know what's going to happen. And don't give me that look, I know you better than you think." She gives a weak smile. He doesn't smile back.

"I'm not.. God, I don't know how to explain this. I wager you're going to be a bit brassed off, but.." she sets her shoulders, steeling herself. "She never really left me, your TARDIS. I can feel her singing to me, even as I'm recording this." Her eyes flutter close for a moment before she opens them again. "It's beautiful."

He hasn't moved an inch.

"I didn't notice at first. I promise, I really didn't. But I started having dreams. Nightmares." She pauses before continuing. "They were... of me. Dying. I never remembered them clearly in the morning, but the feeling stayed with me. That the next trip, the next adventure... It would be our last one."

"It never happened. We kept on traveling, just like we always do. Did. It's weird, getting all this out. But I couldn't just let you go without saying goodbye, I mean... Anyways. She came to me, in one of the dreams - the Bad Wolf. She told me about the Game Station. She said... She said when you tried to take the Vortex out of me, you put a piece of my consciousness in the TARDIS."

"I was connected to the very essence of time, and I didn't even realize. But it was wrong. I'm not... I'm not _you. _ I don't have any business mucking about in things like the Time Vortex. Believe me, I know."

Her hand quickly covers her nose and mouth, her eyes squinting shut, in pain he thought, or maybe despair. After a moment, she takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose before continuing. "I just, I want you to know how much I love traveling with you. And it's not just the planets, the aliens, the inventions; it's also you. It's mostly you." Her face is sad, the corners of her lips trembling. They tilt upward, a little.

His lungs constrict, his jaw tense. He wants to speak, to say something to this ghost of her, but nothing leaves his throat.

"But Doctor," she says, in a different tone, and her eyes are focused intently at the space above his shoulder. Her pupils move a fraction of inch and now they pierce through him, the light making them gold; "It's not too late."

His alarm is immediate, and his hearts beat furiously beneath his ribs. His words are a whisper, harsh in air. "What?"

But she turns, steps away from him, and is gone.

He feels lost, again. But not hopeless.

-----------

He walks slowly on the metal grating, eyes fixed on the console, fingers itching. His steps are even and heavy, a metronome which echoes against the walls.

He has tried to plug in the coordinates, but each time his fingers slip, his bones suddenly pained and unwilling. He is afraid.

-----------

Monkta is bright. Painful.

He walks evenly, still, but now he can feel the threads of time unweaving around him with each step he takes. Some stretch thin, too thin, and snap. They do not reconnect.

The TARDIS is far behind him, now, and the glare of the suns make everything shine white. He can see clouds on the horizon.

_( "But Doctor, we have to help them!" she yells. Her voice_ _is high, outraged. It is no longer the paradise it was when they landed, and the sky is bleak and grey. He is gripping her arm, pulling her back toward the TARDIS._

"_Rose, we can't," he begins, turning to her. Her brows are drawn together in anger, and her lips fall open, ready to retort. "Rose, listen to me! We can't save them – we can't save any of them." A weight presses down on his chest, horrible, invisible. _

"_Why, because it's _meant_ to happen? That's a bloody rubbish excuse, Doctor, and you know it! _Millions_ could die and you're just going to–"_

"_Going to what, Rose? Preserve the timeline? Ensure that this history, however bloody and unjust it is, creates a better future? Allows their deaths to mean something?_"

_The fight leaves her body, a quiet resignation filling her limbs instead. He lets her arm go, directs her to stay there while he dismantles the shields around the TARDIS so they can get inside. She sighs, reluctantly agreeing._

_When he turns his back, walks far enough to pick up a signature, a shot rings out. It is too loud. Too close._

_He turns and watches her distant silhouette crumple, like she was filled with stones instead of blood._

_He runs. )_

His step falters – he can see her. She seems miles off but he recognizes her shape, her gait, her shining hair. A beacon.

He recognizes himself, too, and knows that this is wrong. Knows that he should turn around, should deal with this one death even as his eyes track her living, breathing body as it loops her arm through his in the distance. He remembers the feel of her body sidled against his, her laugh. He feels a creeping and clandestine form of deja vu wrap around his mind, and it chills him.

Still he waits, and watches the clouds move closer.

It won't be long.

-----------

He watches himself watch her die. He feels – detached. Unreal. It is as if he is simply watching a film unfold, with an ending he knows is not concrete. A pressure is building inside of him, one he remembers and tries to quell. Despair is beginning to claw his throat, paralyze him in its methodical and irrational way. He watches himself run to the TARDIS, and springs into action.

He holds her hand, tries not to speak lest he release his clawing despair into any syllable. Her syllable. His fingers release hers and press themselves against each side of her face, holding her. He is breaking apart, can feel parts of himself fold in on themselves; die. The pressure rises so furiously inside of him he feels like there's no room left except for the hope which burns feebly in his chest. His mind touches a gold spark within her head, and he understands. He presses his lips to her forehead, eyes tight as dams, before he lets her go.

He leaves, hearts heavy, hands tingling with her dying warmth, but does not turn to watch himself fail to save her. He would not survive that. Not again.

-----------

He does not know quite how long it takes.

It may have been days. A week, perhaps more. Perhaps less. It didn't matter.

He only knows that his jaw prickles with stubble, and he scratches it listlessly as he continues his work.

If this doesn't work–

-----------

It does.

-----------

"Rose," he says, and in that word is everything that he is, that he was. That she made him.

Her lashes flutter, her eyes opening slowly, carefully. She blinks. Stares at him and blinks again.

Her lips crack open, her teeth hiding her words for a moment. "Doctor," she says.

"I knew you'd figure it out." Something shines in her eyes when she speaks. It looks like suns.


End file.
